This distinction between stage acting and movie acting is interesting. I remember when I was a kid -- or, I guess probably 14-15 -- I saw a talk show where, on a lark, some soap actor stood up and pulled a stranger out of the audience ad did an improv scene with this person. The cameras played along, and then he sat down and went through the footage with the host and explained everything he'd done as he did it. And as he was going along, saying, "I approached her right then to make it more intense, but also to make her back up because she was casting a shadow where she was standing," I realized that I did not have enough active brain cells at any given moment to do that.

I just can't fire that many cylinders at once, you know?

(Soap actors, for the record, don't tend to get retakes or retouching, but do get closeups, so they're sort of a weird hybrid of stage acting and movie acting.)

Soap actors, for the record, don't tend to get retakes or retouching, but do get closeups, so they're sort of a weird hybrid of stage acting and movie acting.

Which probably explains SMG's described gift for finding the light.

This is an interestong discussion. For me, I can usually feel the difference between A and B, but it's sometimes hard for me to get the in-between stuff Betsy was talking about. And there are some things that are just hard for me, full stop -- in yoga, I have a terrible time telling if my back is arched enough.

Matt Damon looked like a truly pathetic overactor in Mystic Pizza, but really it was just the first time he was in a movie, and he didn't get it yet.

I realized that I did not have enough active brain cells at any given moment to do that.

Yip.

That's what I am taking out of watching Farscape, is that you need to not only say the words with emotion, you need to move in such a way that the bits of plastic around you are imbued with emotion. That's what fascinates me -- not the playing pretend (which I love), but the amount of intellectual work that has to power the playing pretend in order for it to work.

Like, when I sit down and write, I'm not (mostly) thinking about technique, because there are years of thinking about technique behind me. But the technique is there, and if I stop and think about it, I know why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Which probably explains SMG's described gift for finding the light.

t techie

Hell, I know a lot of stage actors who still can't find their goddamned light, even when it's a spot. It's beyond me. You're in the light, everything is brighter. You're out of the light, everything is dark.

t /techie

You're in the light, everything is brighter. You're out of the light, everything is dark.

They're not looking at stuff? Everything seems bright enough when they're not in the light, and they only process changes, NSM absolutes (that's me and music, for instance)?

Which probably explains SMG's described gift for finding the light.

The soap actors who make it into movies often describe soap acting as "acting boot camp." Short deadlines, ludicrous lines to say, minimal rehearsal, not much hand-holding or reshoots or fixes. When I was watching soaps regularly, I was catching five or ten continuity mistakes a week, and also catching ten more mistakes the actors themselves found a way out of (like, handling a loud baby while saying lines, or finding a missing prop).

the amount of intellectual work that has to power the playing pretend in order for it to work.

Ah, the "smack the puppet" theory. I have to admit, the puppets did become more real every time they were touched. (Also, it was funny.)

handling a loud baby while saying lines

I love that. Of course, I'm improv's bitch, but responding well ad hoc to cranky toddlers can make me crush heavily on an actor.

Cool stuff on the stage acting technique. JZ's very well schooled in all kinds of stagework and improv, but is the first to admit that she doesn't have the right tools for filmwork.

Verbal instructions simply don't translate to body stuff -- actually, for me, verbal instructions don't translate to anything.

This is the thing that got me all het up about the coach's clinic. It was exciting to see that baseball had a whole deep well of instructional drills designed to move the body and create fundamental muscle memory. There wasn't that much explaining. It was about breaking the complex motions down into simpler components which only got worked individually.

I'm having a little trouble with Emmett because he fields the ball well because of his natural eye-hand coordination, but his technique is actually kind of poor. Without having that fundamental structure in place (footwork, positioning) he's going to make errors on difficult plays that the fundamentals would be able to accomodate. He can't just stab at a hard hit grounder that's coming up on a bad hop. He's got to be positioned properly and able to adjust to the hop. Stuff like that.